Talk:TIE Bomber Expansion Pack/@comment-131.247.140.18-20141030163804/@comment-454133-20161017154608
At the local game store I became known for being quite wicked with TIE Bombers and TIE Punishers, both because of a furballs game where I used a proximity mine punisher to great effect, and an epic ship battle where I prox mined the crap out my foe. I fielded a punisher and two bombers, all moderately loaded with ordnance (mainly Proximity Mines and Cluster Missiles with extra munitions), against the rebel Tantive. I was escourted by another player who fielded 3 TIE Defenders (for a total of 2x100 vs 200 points). The epic ship shed my target locks with some crew ability (I think Toryn Farr) so I failed to fire my missiles, but then I got into mine range and just wrecked his shields, ignoring his reinforce token. Then the TIE Defender escourt laid into the front half of the ship and by next turn we'd ruined its life. The rear half followed soon after (soon being a relative term in the slow crawl of Epic battle rounds), and I think I even got to fire my cluster missiles. I also proximity mined one of his TIEs that got the idea to hug my bomber's rear bumber in traffic. So... fun times! With bombers, as with many ships, the temptation is to fill all your upgrade slots. Don't do this. The problem is a high-cost ship is a high-priority target, and bombers/punishers are big, ungainly, and somewhat poorly defended targets on top of that. As said above, bombers are all Hull and the wrong crit can hurt. Instead, moderately load them, and use Extra Munitions to get the most out of what you equip. Though tricky to deploy, bombs are great against ships that either suck at escaping your maneuvering magesty, or that normally agility/evade away all your attacks. The Action-deployed bombs (e.g. Proximity Mines) are amazing for a low-PS bomber who can plop them onto a target before it activates. Use munitions like Advanced Proton Torpedoes with Guidance Chips to power past a target's defenses, and/or deal massive damage. Equip nothing more than you will get to use before death. A bomber's job in life is to unload its ordnance, then serve as a target and minor attacker until it untragically dies to death. The other way I use bombers is as a TIE Shuttle (either Captain Jonus or Scimitar Squadron Pilot ) carrying some mix of Systems Officer, Fleet Officer, and/or Intelligence Agent, depending on what fellow ships need. This is known as the "Officer Tube". This can be as cheap as 19 to 21 points for a support ship that enables your fleet very nicely, handing out locks and focus tokens, or looking at dials to tell your bomb droppers or Navigators what to do. It's less expensive and less rear-vulnerable than a Lambda Shuttle, and when it dies, it was just a cheap support ship, no tragedy. Ideally it helped your fleet unleash unspeakable, unknowable horrors upon the enemy long before it bit the dust, but even if it's the first to fall, that just means the meat of your fleet was spared for a round.